


Water

by depressedpotato



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bad Poetry, Character Study, Freeform, Gen, Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, Original Universe, Poetry, Time Skips, in fact, its not even finished, just wanted to get it out there, poor attempt of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:01:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22315990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/depressedpotato/pseuds/depressedpotato
Summary: Later, she’ll come to realize dying people always try to hold onto something, maybe as a way of keeping contact with the mortal world. Water is funny that way. It may be the essence of life, but it cannot be grasped in a way people yearn to possess and control what is precious.Water may be the essence of life, but it looms over you like death. Unlike air, you can touch it, but never hold. Never hold, Never control.And what they cannot control, people fear.Arai, now Shiarashi, is fascinated.
Kudos: 4





	Water

**Author's Note:**

> it's okay if you don't understand anything i wrote sorry hhehehehehe  
> I just wanted to get this out here, to get it out of my system  
> You may know how hard it is to exactly portray a universe you've developed in your head for years and years but i'm trying to give you a glimpse of it in this.

From the day she is born, she knows, her element, despite appearances, is neither air, nor earth, nor fire. 

Under the protection of a poisoned tail, Yaseiyama Arakaze comes to world with eyes as hard as the unforgiving mountains of the west, tufts of hair storm couloured and fire coursing in her veins. Only then do the watchful eyes of the Scorpio hiding in a muddy pond gleam, as she chants in the ear of the infant in a steady stream ;  _ your creation, transformation and destruction will be upon water, child, for you are one of mine, seek water, seek water. _

She is born during the first snowstorm of an early winter and dies eight years later, during the last snow of a tardy spring.

She is forced to open her eyes back again with a splash on the face and an ice shard in her vertebra, paralyzing her mentally, rather than the way she was before it, unable to physically move. 

She decides to close them one last time in a freezer room, the remnant of ice taking over her nerves this time, rendering her as still as the molecules of the wall.

* * *

Her link to water is perhaps the only constant in her life, but it’s omnipresence isn't always reassuring. Maybe it has something to do with the ripple of life and death one of her movements might cause.

She’s three years old when she attempts her first kill.

Auntie Rei loves giving them baths but unlike most Japanese, she doesn’t cross the limit between  _ tolerably cold _ and _ barely comfortable mild _ when adjusting the temperature, but she bears with it, because she’s pretty when she’s happy.

She must’ve had little to no patience that day however, something to do with teething, she supposes, the biggest problem of a three-year old, because when Shouto plays a little too much with the temperature on the colder side, she loses control.

She doesn’t remember that day, only memories she’s reconstructed with the tales later told, but she remembers how she felt : a dam broke inside of her and with all the rage her little self possessed, she thought her playmate  _ released too much little balls in the air and that he should stop already, so annoying- _

She only stopped seeing red when Auntie Rei took her out of the bath, with teary eyes and a little Shouto trying to re-grasp the air stolen out of his lungs and she thought she didn’t like crying people that much because they released even more little balls, so when Auntie Rei hugged them both, making them promise not to tell his dad or her mom, she agreed quickly.

Later, she would learn those little balls were carbon dioxide molecules and that it was normal to release them for living beings and that her first kill, had it been successful, would have probably been her cleanest one.

The secret isn’t kept long . She unknowingly lets cold blooded fury guide her through the steps of  _ Inochi no Ibuki _ again a year and a half later, in preschool.

Shouto and her aren’t in the same class but when she hears the arrogant teacher telling him how they are just s _ cientific projects, laboratory bred animals, no different than wagyu beef,  _ and sees his eyes becoming translucent with unshed tears, she justs wants the old geezer to  _ shut up _ , preferably forever and  _ stop wasting oxygen in his wrinkled lungs _ and-

This time, she sees pink. Pink like the man’s blood coming out from his mouth, from his nose, from his eyes and mixing with the water he’s trying to hold onto desperately. 

She doesn’t think,  _ oh no I'm killing him _ , or  _ at least he won't speak anymore _ , but  _ I wonder if the sunsets are really that pink in autumn, I want to see, I want to see. _

She’s jerked off to reality by the sound of the cup falling and spilling its contents, liquid lazily making its way to her feet until the screams of other children take over the unsettling awareness of her own breathing.

Later, she’ll come to realize dying people always try to hold onto something, maybe as a way of keeping contact with the mortal world. Water is funny that way. It may be the essence of life, but it cannot be grasped in a way people yearn to possess and control what is precious.

Water may be the essence of life, but it looms over you like death. Unlike air, you can touch it, but never hold. Never hold, Never control.

And what they cannot control, people fear. 

Arai, now Shiarashi, is fascinated.

Water now takes a whole other dimension for her. Water means secrets, and like droplets rolling over with gravity, forming puddles and seeping deep into earth, water seeps in her life.

Water captivates her, because she can see. In fact, it’s the first shade of blue she sees besides the Todoroki eyes.

They’re old enough to be let to wander by themselves, but there’s really only one place they come back to. It’s their private little beach, a grandiose secret for them at that age, accessible when the sharp edged stone cliff is braved. Shouto always chooses the dangerous way,  _ it’s training in a way,  _ he says _ , I have to be brave like All Might if i'm gonna be a hero _ . She scoffs, saying All Might is a scam as she carves her own path into the stones again. She only did the the difficult course once, the first time, to prove she could, but never forced herself again. Shouto says she’s lazy but she thinks that if she gets to do things her own way with minimal effort, then the adjective doesn’t matter.

They often sneak out of the house at night, and sit under the edge for hours  because Arai doesn’t do heights while Shouto describes her the night sky, the stars and the Milky Way and she clings to every word. But she also clings to the Ocean, the come-and-go of waves, the iode smell and and the soothing lapping of the foam as she’s lulled into sleep by the description of a sky she’ll never get to see.

Shouto mocks her, saying she’s _a weirdo for having pretty much any element she wants at her fingertips but still obsessing over the one she has no control over_. She doesn’t even try to hide the passion in her eyes as she explains _how breathtaking it is_ , he laughs a little at the word play, _how infinite it looks and how despite there being a few little balls, she can still see, so blue, so pretty, just like your eye_ , she claims, _expect yours is prettier_ , she doesn’t add.

Water, she associates with long summer nights and dango, feeling at peace.

Until she doesn’t.

Her mother is powerful, but not lethal like she is, and even if she doesn’t gloat because of this little detail, she takes a shameful pride in it. 

When she was younger, Fuyumi told her the Shiarashis had the same expression range as a constipated goat. That’s when Uncle Enji bursted out laughing with her mother, as her father escorted an angry and red Fuyumi out of the room, apologising on their behalf.

At seven years old, she learns it’s not true, it’s just that her mother is really talented at carving masks out of cement, and maybe in that way she’s even more of a Yaseiyama than both her father and her, until the cement dries out and crumbles.

It’s Uncle Enji and Auntie Rei’s anniversary, their kids are at their grandmother’s who doesn’t like her very much, she doesn’t know why, and her father is out at night like he sometimes is, thinking he’s so discreet when he comes back and hides his mask. So her mother takes her out to the beach, to the ocean, to open air and even though she forbid night time swims, she says they’re making an exception tonight.

She gets into the water and Arai sees how fragile stoicness is, how easily her mother’s expression is shattered by a few droplets. She stands in the middle of the water, crying her eyes out and Arai doesn’t understand. Her mother tells her she hopes she never will, but judging by the pitying look she gives her, Arai knows she will. 

Shiarashi Kochi then washes her face with salt water, carving out her new mask, wetting the cement and she tells her daughter :  _ Only water washes away water, do not forget. _

Arakaze will not forget.

Water, means cycles. Water transforms. The same molecules reconfigure themselves over and over again, take different shapes, different states. Just when you think it evaporated, water comes back in the form of a raging storm, clouds heavy and air charged with electricity. The most painful stage, is that calm before the storm, while evaporated water condenses again going under a torturous process of limbo between nonexistence and destruction.

She turns nine and becomes a Koroyashi. For the first time, she fears. 

She fears water because it means freezing rooms and ice, ice means death.

The bitch healed her with death itself and now she has to live on.

Freezing rooms mean paralysis. The ice shard lodged in the middle of her  _ vertebrae lumbales  _ permits her to move but should it become too hot, ice melts her spinal nerve is no longer connected, lower body unresponsive. Should it become too cold, ice takes over, like an enemy conquering from the inside out, nerves so sensitive that breathing,  _ breathing  _ becomes too much.

Freezing rooms also mean trauma. Freezing rooms remind her how instinct failed her in the  _ fight or flight _ situation where, she should’ve taken her heels and  _ run  _ for once in her life, but no, she took her stance with pride and waited, too much pride, always pride.

Now she can do neither.

Koroyashi Arakaze is nine, and she wants to die.

  
  
  


Shiarashi Arakaze is officially dead, but the underground community knows better.

She is now a chained beast under the command of the Raven. Whoever controls her, controls death and for the forgotten streets of Shizuoka, death is everyday life.

_ Her  _ everyday life means interrogations and negotiations and her face pressed down in dirty water with metallic taste filling out her lungs. 

They say it’s to see if she’s really who her guardian claims her to be.

Then, they say it’s ironic to see a Shiarashi thrashing around for air. 

There is no way she would drown in normal circumstances, but normal circumstances melted away the same day her home did. Now, everytime she uses her quirk, her collar zaps her ; leaving her writhing on the floor. She tries to kill herself by electrocution but they don’t let her. Unsuccessful tries result in missions, she would rather not even imagine.

She knows she won’t drown but she’s collared and water is a conductor.

She doesn’t do anything to resist after a while. It’s tiring. Let death come and take her. It must be angry, because they made her cheat it when she had not meant to. Those who seek death may not find it, but she will let it come to her, like luring a capricious cat.

Nonetheless, her other guardian forces her to electrocute herself by using her quirk. She won’t let water fill the air chambers and tear down her pulmonary system today.

But Arakaze knows, one day water will come for her and she will die by its hands because water rewards persistence.

It’s a matter of patience.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> My original character changes names throughout her life, pls don't get too confused  
> Yaseiyama, Shiarashi and Koroyashi are the surnames given to her.  
> Arakaze is her name but as it is composed of two words, people either use Arai or Kaze  
> All the names are meaningful but that's a story for another day


End file.
